


Emet-Selch's One-Button Crafting Macro

by starcunning



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Original Female Character - Freeform, Reincarnation Romance, Shadowbringers Spoilers, it's actually not a comedic piece i'm just incapable of taking my own work seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-16 06:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19641208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcunning/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: O mournful voice of creation! Send unto me a weapon-bearing drone, my thrall to command, that I may smite mine enemies![Shadowbringers MSQ/level 80 spoilers]





	Emet-Selch's One-Button Crafting Macro

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there. It's been a while. If you follow my tumblr (starcunning.tumblr.com) you'll have gotten more regular content drops, plus the occasionally musing, since 4.3, about a project called "Blue Radiance" that I dreamed up and then suspended when the expansion zagged hard from what I had planned.
> 
> And then zigged right back into prime territory to make things happen.
> 
> So these are the characters from that project, which I hope to deliver later this year. Blue Radiance concerns these two characters, and what may endure after a thousand, thousand lifetimes.
> 
> I'm not sorry about that title, by the way.

When it was after dark, the sound of a knock interrupted the quiet patter of rain against her window, and she rose to open the door. Emet-Selch was waiting on the other side, and she blinked in surprise, shifting onto her back foot.

“You knock now?” Caelina wondered. “I’d grown so used to people simply appearing at my side.”  
“I could do that if you would prefer,” the Ascian said, his lips quirking upward, “but I believe you made a request of me to do otherwise. May I come in?”  
Her eyes narrowed a moment, as though she might judge what he was about simply by squinting at him, but his features were soft, almost as soft as those gold eyes were incisive. He was much better at measuring with a look, she decided, and stepped back from the threshold. “Don’t mind the mess,” she said.  
“I never do,” he replied smoothly, gliding in past her.

It was impossible to ignore, of course, the scatter of papers and spare parts arrayed over what might have been her dinner table, had she not given it over to the purposes of her engineering. He went directly to it—but did not touch, only looked, and she was not sure if she would rather those gold eyes were on her or her work.

“Well, well,” he said, so quietly she was not sure it was meant for her ears, “isn’t this familiar.”  
“It shouldn’t be,” Caelina murmured, drawing abreast of him and beginning to straighten up her work. “It’s a new design. I hope to have it ready for testing in the next few days.”  
“When did you begin?”  
“Yesterday.”  
“So you forged all of this,” he said, gesturing to the components arrayed across her table, “today?”  
“Yes, but the Mean closes at night—well, I suppose it was nighttime hours before—so as not to disturb the citizens’ rest. So I’ll have to finish tomorrow.”  
“You work quickly,” he said, and there was a strange warmth in his voice that enkindled a similar warmth upon her cheeks.  
“It would be faster if I had Nero here,” she said.  
“Tol Skeever?”  
“ _ Scaeva, _ ” she corrected.  
“Yes, yes, that’s who I meant.” He waved it off with a single loose hand. “Is  _ that _ where he ended up? I’d have thought you’d prefer Garlond.”  
“Everyone does,” she sighed.  
“Where did you learn this?” he wondered, his gaze drifting back toward her. His gloved fingers rested against her blueprints even as he turned, his touch seeming feather-light. “If you had attended the Academy, I think I would recall.”  
“My parents were imperial engineers,” she said.  
“Valeria,” he echoed, thoughtful. “Hm! So they were.”  
“You knew them?”  
“Not as such,” Emet-Selch said. “But they were assigned to Meteor, and I recall the names of every engineer working on that project. That they should give rise to you …”

There was some part of her that recoiled at the idea of interrupting his thoughts; the pensive set of his brow and the gentle downturn of his mouth gave him an odd air of melancholy. It was easy to forget, in such a moment as this, who he had been and what he had done. It all seemed so very distant from them now, like it had happened on some other star.

And, in a way, it had.

“What did you want?” Caelina asked at length.  
“Merely the pleasure of your company,” he replied. “Perhaps it is  _ you _ that might want something? My aid, perhaps. You said yourself it would go faster.”  
“Are you an engineer now on top of everything else?”  
“My dear,” he said gently, “it was I who introduced the magitek reforms to the republican army—aided, of course, by the woman who would be my wife. And those designs were patterned after the work of Allag—my work, I should say. I assure you, I am quite capable of realizing your concepts.”  
“Then by all means,” Caelina said, stepping aside so that her shadow no longer fell across the table.

He settled in then, hunched over her makeshift workbench to scrutinize her work. He said nothing; he did not even remember to breathe, half the time, and soon the sound of rain held dominion over her apartments once more.

She had expected someone more regal. He had been an Emperor—twice over, as he liked to brag—and lived longer than she could conceive of. It staggered her to even hold in her mind, and fit oddly against the image of him napping beneath the boughs of Rak’tika. The slump of his shoulders echoed her own, on her worst days—those that followed the sort of all-nighter she’d been planning. He was ageless; could he  _ tire? _ But when she leaned in to look at her own drafts, she found him smiling, gentle as a lamb.

He looked up at her and met her eyes, lifting a hand from the table. “I can make this,” he said.  
“The forges are closed,” Caelina said, “and I need to go to the market for crystal shards.”  
“Patterns and crystals, you say?” Emet-Selch asked with amusement. He seemed undeterred, and did not look away from her. Instead he snapped his gloved fingers, and she felt a sudden weight in her arms.

There rested the prototype—a small drone, its little wings withdrawn against its body. It felt solid and real and cool, and she stared at it in wonder. It was just as she had envisioned, and just as she had laid it out.

“How—” Caelina began, but found she did not even know what question to ask.  
“There was a time every man, woman, and child could do this,” he said. “It is my fondest hope for you to recover the art.”  
She could feel the upturned furrow of her brow, the way her mouth had fallen open. She set the drone aside, delicately, and was surprised to hear the hollow sound of metal upon wood, as though it were only real so long as she touched it.  
“I believe customarily you should say ‘thank you,’” Emet-Selch prompted.  
“Thank you,” she parroted, still numb.  
“You are more than welcome, my dear.”


End file.
